England vs' Germany

1
England vs. Germany

• Clash of Cultures and Values,
• not just Politics, in WWI
• all quotes from Eksteins, Modris. Rites of
  Spring The Great War and the Birth of the
  Modern Age. New York Bantam Doubleday, 1989.

2
Germany at the turn of the century

• Gesellschaft, or society, overwhelmed the sense
  of Gemeinschaft, or community speed and bigness
  became the dominant facts of lifebeyond the
  individual and his scale of personal reference
  (69).
• rapid industrialization and urbanization
• focus on progress, efficiency ideals of purity
  and spirituality
• focus on spirit rather than social interactions

3
German Cultural Values

• Kultur
• concerned with inner freedom, with
  authenticity, with truth rather than sham, with
  essence as opposed to appearance, with totality
  rather than the norm (77).
• combination of art, history, and contemporary
  life in total drama
• Gesamtkunstwerk (total art work)
• not concerned with codes of behavior

4
German Nationalism

• Rooted in art
• Particularly Wagner
• Xenophobic passionate about German heritage
• Denn am deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen
  (80).
• By the German soul the world will be made whole.

5
Richard Wagner, German composer

• His vision of grand opera aimed not only at
  uniting all the arts but also at elevating his
  Gesamtkunstwerk, his total art work, to a
  position where it was the supreme synthesis and
  expression of Kultur, a combination of art,
  history, and contemporary life in total drama,
  where symbol and myth became the essence of
  existence. Even politics were subsumed in
  theaterBayreuth Wagners home becamea place
  where the aesthetic moment was to encapsulate all
  the meaning of history and all the potential of
  the future (77).

6
German Attitudes

• War is the price one must pay for culture (90).
  Wolfgang Roethe
• Germans were convinced of their moral
  superiority, moral strength, and their moral
  right (Theodor Heuss, 1914).
• The war, ironically, was a matter of life, not
  death it was an affirmation of vitality, energy,
  virtue. The war was a matter of art (94).

7
Germany on brink of war

• In early August 1914 Germans wallow in what
  appears to them to be the genuineresolution of
  all domestic strifeparty versus party, class
  against class, sect against sect, church in
  conflict with stateMaterial concerns and all
  mundane matters are surpassed by a spiritual life
  force (62).

8
Edwardian England

• Liberty was not permissiveness it was an
  outgrowth of social knowledge and discipline.
  Liberty was hard work. Liberty was not the right
  to do as you pleased liberty was the opportunity
  to do as you should (118).

9
Edwardian England

• Respectability was perhaps the key feature of
  the moral and social climate of this period in
  Britain. Whether one was respectable was more
  important as a criterion of social acceptability
  than wealth or power. Prudence, earnestness, and
  moral fervor were necessary signals of
  respectability, andduty came to be included in
  the category of pleasure and virtue in that of
  happiness (130).

10
Edwardian England

• We should not lose sight of the craving for
  fixities, the belief that experience should be
  subservient to order, that bridged the Victorian
  and Edwardian eras. That inimitable Victorian
  Samuel Smiles summed up the urge pithily A
  place for everything, and everything in its
  place (128).

11
David Lloyd George, Cabinet MinsterSept. 19,
1914

• We have been living in a sheltered valley for
  generations. We have been too comfortable and
  too indulgentand the stern hand of Fate has
  scourged us to an elevation where we can see the
  great everlasting things that matter for a
  nationthe great peaks we have forgotten, of
  Honour, Duty, Patriotism, and, clad in glittering
  white, the great pinnacle of Sacrifice pointing
  like a rugged finger to Heaven (133).

12
War as Sport

• In the Victorian era the British did become
  obsessed with games, and translated the sporting
  ethic into guidelines for social intercourse as a
  wholeSports, then, were to serve both a moral
  and a physical purpose they would encourage
  self-reliance and team spirit they would build
  up the individual and integrate him into the
  group (120-121).

13
Vitai Lampada, by Sir Henry Newbolt, 1898

• The sand of the desert is sodden red
• Red with the wreck of a square that broke
• The Gatlings jammed and the Colonel dead,
• And the regiment blind with dust and smoke
• The river of death has brimmed its banks,
• And Englands far, and Honour a name
• But the voice of the schoolboy rallies the ranks
• Play up! Play up! And play the game!

14
Language of the Great War

• Horse steed
• Enemy the foe
• Dead fallen
• Draft-notice summons
• Enlist join the colours
• To win to conquer, to vanquish
• Not to complain to be manly
• Cowardice dishonor

• Soldier warrior
• Army legion
• Object of attack goal
• Sky the heavens
• Ones death ones fate
• The front the field
• Complimentary adjectives gallant, staunch,
  valorous, ardent, keen